Hi! I am 40 and trying to get back into shape. Horseback riding and getting back to running again have helped a lot! A lot of people think of riding as just sitting on the horse while he does all the work, but riding properly actually is quite strenuous exercise.

I've struggled with my weight for a lot of my life - since puberty anyhow. I was kind of skinny before the hormones hit... I ran track and cross country in HS which helped keep things under control, but the tendency to get ...

Hi! I am 40 and trying to get back into shape. Horseback riding and getting back to running again have helped a lot! A lot of people think of riding as just sitting on the horse while he does all the work, but riding properly actually is quite strenuous exercise.

I've struggled with my weight for a lot of my life - since puberty anyhow. I was kind of skinny before the hormones hit... I ran track and cross country in HS which helped keep things under control, but the tendency to get chubby was still there & I gained weight between seasons most years. One of my coaches picked on my weight a lot (even though I was within the "normal" range for my height at the time, I still wasn't built like Paula Radcliffe, which seemed to be a problem for this guy!)

When I was in college I put on the freshman 15 and for years my weight hovered around 150-160, even though I walked miles and miles a day since I had no car. I wasn't eating very well & tended to do a lot of stress eating (and college & grad school are not exactly stress free...) - and kept going with those same patterns right into my post-school years... doing a lot of exercise but eating too much and too poorly to keep myself in really good condition.

In my mid-30s, I went from 183 (highest ever non-pregnant weight) to 153 for my sister's wedding - the thought of wearing a skinny-strap gown in public was motivation enough for that.

I maintained that until I got pregnant with DD a couple years later. I gained 40 lbs while pregnant. Now, more than 4 years post baby, I still haven't managed to get the last 10-15 lb. off, and I still had a little to lose before that, so here I am...